POP THERAPY: This week I am joined by return guest and one of my favourite podcasters of all time, Ryan Bailey. You know him from So Bad It’s Good with Ryan Bailey, wherehe does a deep exploration of pop culture, with episodes around the clock.

We were lucky enough to have him back on the podcast thisweek, to dive right into the evolution of reality tv, how these shows are made and what’s missing from the secret sauce.

We covered everything from our Bravo faves RHONY, Southern Hospitality, Southern Charm and RHOSLC, to Elvis and the Menendez brothers! Spoiler alert – Ryan does not have high hopes for their release. Yikes.

This is a high energy conversation about all of the pop culture and reality tv we love (and hate watch) and exactly why that is.

Follow Ryan on socials at @sobaditsgoodwithryanbailey, listen to his podcast, watch him on YouTube and become a “Baddie” by subscribing to his Patreon!

You can find me at @jana.firestone on socials and if youenjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review on iTunes, share it with friends and tag us on socials!

Thank you as always, to our brilliant sound engineer and production legend, Sam Talbot.

Nadia Mahjouri is a counsellor and group facilitator specialising in maternal mental health, with a professional background in research, focussed on ethics and feminist philosophy. She also has a fascinating backstory, that lit up the pages of her first novel, Half Truth.

Her debut novel tells a somewhat fictionalised version of her own journey to find her family.

Nadia grew up as a dark skinned child in 80’s Tasmania,with a white mother who never talked about her Moroccan father. She had no contact and very little information about him or his family.

When she was 21, she had a baby and just four months later packed him up, hopped on a plane and landed in Morocco. She felt pulled to connect with the side of her heritage and her identity that she had known nothing about.

There, she started to unravel the many mysteries of her life and the discover all of the untold stories that lived within her DNA, in ways she could never have imagined.

And of course, I wanted to hear all about it.

Nadia’s story is inspiring, moving and exciting. We covered so much ground, from the importance of identity and belonging, to the complexities of families and straddling cultures.

This is a story about self-discovery, connection to roots and that age old question around nature vs nurture.

You can connect with Nadia on socials at@nadiamahjouri.

Listen to her podcastThe Whole Truth: Motherhood and the Writing Life with Nadia Mahjouri

Or find her atwww.nadiamahjouri.com or at ww.theholdingspacecounselling.com

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes sothis and other stories can find their way into new listener’s ears!

You’ll find me at@jana.firestone or atwww.thecuriouslife.net

Thank you as always to The Curious Life team –legendary sound engineer Sam Talbot and the wonderful Julie Reynolds of@audiolemonade .ww.audiolemonade.com

Welcome to the first official POP THERAPY episode of The Curious Life! As you may already know, I am a therapist with 18 years’ experience in the field of human behaviour. But my therapy is reality tv and pop culture.

On these Pop Therapy episodes, I will be inviting a guest from the pop culture world to join me in dissecting the shows we are hooked on, and unpacking the human behaviour behind the storylines and the headlines that have us all talking.

This week I'm chatting with The Bravo Investigator, Dana Regan and we did a huge Bravo deep dive. We recorded this before the final episode of RHONY, so we don't get into that darkness, but we do share our thoughts on that franchise in general, as well as our current fave Southern Hospitality, the new season of Southern Charm, RHOC, RHOSLC, VPR and The Valley.

Dana reminded me just why as Bravo fans, we might need to put down pitchforks and embrace some of the more unlikable characters on some of our favourite shows. A novel concept!

We went all over the Bravo-verse in this one, so if you’re a Bravo fan, strap in and enjoy the ride!

You can find Dana on Instagram at @thebravoinvestigator and her brilliant podcast has just had a rebrand and is now The Bravo Investigator Podcast (formerly, I Take Bravo Very Seriously)

You can find me at @jana.firestone or at thecuriouslife.net

If you liked this episode please leave us a rating or review on iTunes and hit up the DM’s to share your thoughts!

Thank you to my wonderful sound engineer Sam Talbot, for putting this show together so seamlessly.